Scheduled to release before Blood and Wine becomes available on Tuesday, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt update 1.20 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC includes a host of changes and improvements to the main game and Hearts of Stone expansion.
Some highlights from the update include the ability to enable enemy level upscaling, the ability to move a Geralt model in the Player Statistics panel, changes for various icons, fixes for Geralt’s clothing that wasn’t properly restored after sex scenes, and many Hearts of Stone fixes.
Here’s the full list of patch notes:
Improvements
- Adds book titled ‘A Miraculous Guide to Gwent’ which displays number of gwent cards missing from player’s base-game collection and information on where to find them, thus facilitating completion of achievement titled Collect ‘Em All. Tome in question can be obtained either from gwent playing scholar in Prologue or from merchant near St. Gregory’s Bridge in Gildorf district of Novigrad.
- Adds option to display herb names above available interactions.
- Adds option in Options/Gameplay to enable enemy level upscaling. If foes are too easy to defeat due to level difference, upscaling will render them a challenge. Change will not affect experience point gain, loot, or quest rewards. Option can be enabled or disabled at any time, even during combat (however, Vitality/Essence of foes is then fully restored).
- Adds option in Options/Gameplay to disable automatic drawing and sheathing of sword.
- Increases incidence of, and thus chances of finding, several monster-based ingredients required for crafting high level alchemy formulae.
- Improves Player Statistics panel, adding maneuverable Geralt model. Improves visuals in panel for better readability.
- Adds new functionality to books and scrolls. When first collected, they can be read immediately using single button without need of navigating to Inventory panel. All found but not yet read books and scrolls are stored in Quest Items and Other categories. Once read, books and scrolls can be sold as their content is saved in Books section of Glossary.
- Improves overall visuals in Character Development panel.
- Improves Inventory whereby items are divided into additional subcategories within their grids: weapons and armor; oils, potions and bombs; quest items and others; food and equestrian gear; crafting and alchemy. Additionally, introduces redesign of tooltips enabling their resizing with single button. Also, item comparison is easier than ever given addition of summary of changes in stats.
- Improves Inventory navigation when using gamepad. Slots are divided into sections and right stick can be used to jump between them.
- Improves Crafting panel in merchant shops. Adds option to purchase missing diagram components directly from Crafting panel when talking to merchant, as well as clearer descriptions and option to resize item descriptions.
- Introduces redesign of Repair panel in merchant shops. Adds single button enabling players to repair all equipped items.
- Improves Remove Upgrade panel in merchant shops.
- Improves Quick Access Menu whereby it can be accessed in one of two modes, with action either paused or slowed depending on button used.
- Adds functionality whereby crossbow bolts can be switched via Quick Access Menu rather than being equipped from Inventory.
- Adds counter for bombs and crossbow bolts to Quick Access Menu.
- Improves region maps by adding pin filtering, more intuitive quest tracking, and a region overview for faster navigation.
- Adds three new custom pins allowing players to mark areas for future reference.
- Improves Adrenaline Bar which better displays number of stored Adrenaline Points and their status.
- Improves display and behavior of Buffs, displayed in more intuitive manner showing time left, strength percentage, stacks, charges, or permanence where applicable. Buff icons now blink for approx. 10 seconds before expiration. For improved visibility, names and exact expiration times for all effects are only visible when Quick Access menu is active.
- Changes icons for decoctions, rendering them recognizable at first glance.
- Changes icons for oils, rendering them recognizable at first glance.
- Changes gwent card icons in shops, rendering factions recognizable at first glance.
- Changes icons for mutagens.
- Adds feature whereby equipment exceeding player character level can be previewed on character.
- Improves sorting in Journal whereby active quest tab is always open and tracked quest is at top of quest list.
- Improves quest item visuals so that Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine quest items are now tagged with blue and red exclamation points, respectively.
Gwent
- Quest titled Collect ‘Em All is now marked as failed if player does not succeed in collecting Milva, Vampire Bruxa and Dandelion gwent cards during gwent tournament in quest titled A Matter of Life and Death.
Visual
- Fixes PC-specific issue whereby there was no change in appearance between Nvidia Hairworks 3-day beard (stage 2) and full beard (stage 4).
- Fixes issue whereby Geralt’s clothing was not properly restored after sex scenes.
- Fixes visual issue whereby guards holding torches would have inverse kinematics when animated.
- Fixes PS4-specific visual issue whereby texture of water puddles would not fade properly.
Gameplay
- Updates description of Superior Blizzard potion. Potion now slows time for a short period whenever an enemy is slain. Additionally, during this period actions do not deplete Stamina if 3 Adrenaline Points are available.
- Fixes issue whereby indicator for Oil charges would appear incorrectly in New Game Plus mode.
- Fixes issue whereby Flood of Anger skill could endlessly increase Sign intensity.
- Fixes issue whereby Ciri could be missing her scabbard in certain situations.
- Fixes issues whereby damage from Northern Wind bombs could be calculated incorrectly.
- Fixes issue whereby pool of experience points would invert to negative value when player reached level 70 cap or used Potion of Clearance.
- Fixes PC platform-specific issue whereby only the ‘E’ key would open Stash chest despite user manually changing relevant key binding
According to Community Lead Marcin Momot, “Patch 1.20 is not supposed to be out on any platforms until after the weekend. We are looking into this. Thank you for your patience.” This means you should expect it early on Monday, since the Blood and Wine expansion will be available on Monday, May 30, at 4pm PT/7pm ET through the PlayStation Store.
A download size for the patch wasn’t revealed, though we do know Blood and Wine should be between 10 – 15GB, depending on your platform.
[Source: The Witcher, Marcin Momot, CD Projekt Red Forums via NeoGAF]
10 PS4 Sequels That Could Fulfill Untapped Potential
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PS4 Sequels That Could Fulfill Untapped Potential
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Knack
Knack's not a bad game. No, seriously. Knack was a heavily flawed attempt at an action platformer that leaned way too much into a brawler (as its gameplay is almost scarily similar to God of War). Focus more on jumping and traversal, and there really could be something great here. I'm not ready to give up on Knack, and neither should you!
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Destiny
It definitely seems like Bungie has learned a lot from Destiny, as The Taken King was a huge step forward. It's still not all the way there, though. The gunplay is so sensational, and the world is so interesting, that it's hard not to be frustrated with the rest of the experience. It'd be impossible to completely fix the current game, but it could definitely be done in a sequel. One that is certainly inevitable considering what a success Destiny has been.
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The Wolf Among Us
Telltale Games did such a great job with The Wolf Among Us, but they really only scratched the surface of what they could do with the Fables license. There's a lot of different characters yet to be explored, and Bigby's adventure is one the developer should go back to. They would have to make sure episodes are released regularly, as the infrequent release schedule of the original really hurt the overall interest in it.
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Watch Dogs
While some gamers may have a sour taste left in their mouths from Watch Dogs, there's no denying that Ubisoft had a great idea for a game. The core concept of being able to hack different pieces of technology is awesome, and it's why the game drummed up so much interest in the first place. A sequel could keep that same premise, while also introducing a likable protagonist (although Ubisoft seems to have a hard time creating those lately), and refined hacking that feels fun and not a chore. Oh, and get rid of the open-world towers. Please.
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Evolve
A terrible eSports focused marketing strategy and a shocking amount of day-one DLC really put a bullet into Evolve right when it came out. That's a real shame, as when you're playing with a full team that is communicating and working together there's really nothing else quite as satisfying. A sequel, if advertised properly, could build upon great gameplay, and maybe copy a bit more of what made Turtle Rock's Left 4 Dead such a success.
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Doki-Doki Universe
Don't panic, HumaNature Studios' Doki-Doki Universe is one of the most unique games on PlayStation 4. Blending together an adventure game and an interactive personality test, the game is brimming with charm and general weirdness. A few things kept it from maximizing its potential, though, including a poor sense of progression, and repetition.
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The Evil Within
Director Shinji Mikami is a living legend, and has been instrumental in creating some of the greatest games ever made. He's also the mind behind The Evil Within which ended up being a huge disappointment. If anything, it did show that there's still fans looking for a great survival horror game, and one misstep can't undo the decades of great games from Mikami. A sequel could be something special now that Tango Gameworks has more experience under their belt.
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The Swindle
The Swindle is a really good game that's a few tweaks away from being amazing. Basically a stealth version of Spelunky, it has all of the hooks that make other roguelikes so addictive. Unfortunately, the game had some issues early on with procedurally generated levels, and later levels almost felt unfair. There's plenty of small things that could be enhanced in a sequel, and I'd love to see Size Five wow gamers with it.
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Unravel
Unravel won over the hearts of many gamers immediately upon its unveil. The EA-published title is amazingly gorgeous, and it's a shame that the gameplay didn't match its visual prowess. Thankfully, a sequel is in the works and hopefully the second time around will let Yarny truly shine.
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The Order 1886
If one game on this list needs a sequel, it's The Order 1886. Not only does it end just as its plot is getting interesting, there's also a solid framework to build off of. While the original game wasn't anything more than a really pretty third-person shooter with average gunplay, there's still a chance for this series to be something special. It'd also be nice if the sequel could even run full-screen, but beggars can't be choosers.